


Theatre of the Heart

by Myzic



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Bonding, Fluff, Gen, Not Beta Read, implied domestic abuse, mostly fluff and bonding i promise, tppvday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:40:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29418786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myzic/pseuds/Myzic
Summary: There are a couple of ways to handle heartbreak. Alcohol, the tried and true method, denial, and other forms of intimacy she’d rather not think about in relation to Mistah Steel, thank you very much.Or, the much healthier option, a best friend! Who’s always been there for support and always will be.Huh. Boss is pretty lucky to have her, ain’t he?
Relationships: Rita & Juno Steel
Comments: 10
Kudos: 27
Collections: TPP Valentine's Exchange





	Theatre of the Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluemoodblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluemoodblue/gifts).



> NOTICE: There’s some light, implied domestic abuse at the beginning, but other than that no CWs.
> 
> This was written for the tppvday exchange of 2021! Specifically, for bluemoodblue whose writing I Very Much admire, and I have been freaking out about writing her prompts for months. Hope you enjoy it!!!!!

He comes into the office with a black eye on Saturday. It’s not unusual, in fact, Rita has a graph triangulating when Mistah Steel is most likely to come in with what injuries. He isn’t due another black eye for two days, but she doesn’t say anything to him as he slumps over his desk.

Mistah Steel pecks at the keyboard, she could swear at an even slower pace than usual, and she keeps an eye on him, ducking around her screen to see if he’s still moving and hasn’t fossilized in place while she types up the arrest numbers for this month. Rita could do with the occasional glance-away anyhow. They’re real depressing.

“Heyy there, Boss,” she plops down a stack of files on his desk and subtly peeks at his face. “Officer Falco got you two doing the late-night sneaking again?” Mistah Steel lifts his head to look at her, and ouch. Up close, the deep purple shines like the soft flesh of a plum.

He drags a hand over his forehead, blinking blearily at her. “What? No, I—” His voice starts out a snap, grumpy and familiar before faltering. “Just didn’t get much sleep.” Boss grumbles out.

“Oh, I completely get that. I was so close to coming in late this morning ‘cause I was up all last night watchin’ this really interesting stream— I think you’d actually like this one, Mistah Steel— about these two lovers, destined for each other! They had this whole arranged marriage thing going on, but it turns out Biyu had way better prospects—” Rita chatters, grateful to finally have someone to talk to about ‘Moon-Struck Lovers of the Burning Moon,’ but she cuts herself off as something in Mistah Steel’s face crumples. His eyes shine for just a moment before his head is in his hands again. “Boss?”

“Go back to work, Rita.”

Well, that ain’t happening.

She pulls out a tub of tiger stripe ice cream, leaving her TV to flicker scenes of blaster shots and desperate, fighting faces. Mistah Steel sits, stiff-backed on her couch that probably isn’t worth his effort with its torn fabric and stained cushions.

It isn’t the stream Rita had suggested to him, because while she hadn’t got anything out of Boss except a muttered admission of having nowhere to sleep, she’s seen him scrolling through pictures of wedding dresses at his desk, his partner dropping him off at the precinct with a kiss, silver hair whipping in the wind as she rode off on a sleek black motorcycle. She’d seen his bruises, arms cradling ribs on the days after he’d gone home without injury. And Rita’s no detective, but it isn’t exactly difficult to connect the dots from there.

“Want some?” Rita tilts the tub toward him and Mistah Steel declines. She’s aware of his restless presence throughout the entirety of ‘Cowbot: the Man, the Robot, the Sheriff’ and then through the next stream too.

“Do you want to talk about it?” She asks as the deputy wails his heart out on screen, face screwed up red and tearful.

Now, Boss looks completely absorbed in the film, eyes flickering to her and weakly pretending he was paying attention to the stream instead of turning his comms off and on again for the last fifteen minutes of dramatic monologue. “No,” Mistah Steel doesn’t look at her. “We don’t have to,” he says like he had any intention of telling her in the first place.

Rita doesn’t push, and slowly, he relaxes into the red weave of the couch, slumping. The screen flashes across his face in flickers of blue, zipping green and brown under his eye bags. There’s a scuffle, a girl holding a glowing red stone above her head before she’s tackled, and then Mistah Steel’s staring at the scene wide-eyed, elbows on his knees.

Unfurling from her semi-curled position, she gets up from her seat and goes to grab another bowl from her cupboards while filling her own with more tiger stripes. Mistah Steel doesn’t move or startle as Rita sits back down, tipping the pillowy seat down to her side. She slips the bowl into his hands and without a word, he starts eating the ice cream. Rita stops paying so much attention to Boss and starts watching the show.

“I’ve seen this bit before, and I don’t wanna spoil anything, but she totally should have ended up with that sweet girl-next-door, not the dashing savant, because while he had his appeal— what Yerta needs is stability! And that’s what Indrid—”

“Hey, Rita,” his voice buzzes low beneath the stream and Rita stops talking. “Why’re you doing this?”

She has to think about that for a second, if only because it’s such a sad thing to say. “Well, everyone should have someone on their side.” She shrugs. “Did you have anyone to go to today, Mistah Steel?”

Boss sits there, empty bowl cupped in his hands and he is silent at that.

“Then, I can be that person for you! I want to be that person for you, ‘cause…” Rita trails off, suddenly unsure of her next words. “We’re friends right?”

Someone yells through the screen, and for a moment, she gets no response except for feet hitting the ground furiously in a box across the room.

“Yeah,” Mistah Steel agrees slowly, and she sags in relief. “Hell if I know why you decided to imprint on me, but sure. Friendship for a place to sleep sounds like more than a fair deal to me.”

Rita sighs and leans over to pat his arm. “We’ll work on that.”

“Hey, Rita, I don’t know if it’s my business to be asking, but are you…” Mistah Steel steps out of his office and gives her workspace a sweeping look with sharp eyes and Rita glances around at the scattered case files, her bursting garbage of wrappers, “alright? You don’t happen to have any pets that died tragically before their time?”

She shoots a look at her comms, unable to help herself, and he strides toward it, following Rita’s gaze. 

“It’s—” Rita takes a breath. “If you had a really good friend who you may or may not have been more than friends with and broke up with her, what would you do? Not for me or anythin’, but don’t you think it’d be better to never see her again because you know once you’ve closed that chapter of your life, you just gotta let it go!”

Boss blinks and scrunches his face. “Is this person your friend?”

Well— no. Or— maybe. Rita’s not really sure. She had kinda just got it all out and told Franny they were over before getting away as fast as she could. “Eh. Kind of. We were better as friends if that helps!”

“God, Rita, I really shouldn’t be the one to give you advice on this crap. Don’t you have someone else to ask about it?”

“Sure do,” She tells him and deflates. “I had Franny.”

“And that’s…?”

“The girl I broke up with.”

“Of course it is,” Boss groans.

“That’s what all the great heroines do, you know?” Rita explains, “They move on to bigger and better pastures, never to see their exes again, because why would they ever want to with their new—” she sniffs suddenly, unable to help the bubbling in her chest that erupts at the thought of never talking to her wonderful, if slightly over-critical, ex-girlfriend again. “New lives. Oh, Mistah Steel, I might have messed this up real bad!"

He lifts his hands defensively, palms toward her. “I’ve only ever made things worse when I talk to people.” Rita wipes at her nose. She can only tackle so much at a time, and Mistah Steel’s self-defeating tendencies are not something she feels up to beating today. “Look, you obviously still want to stay in touch. Why don’t you just… tell her that?”

The curve of her comms earpiece looks like a fang, sharp and wicked, as Rita considers that. “I kinda left things off on a bad note. I don’t know. She probably doesn’t wanna speak to me.”

“Rita, you come into the agency and put up with me every day. Since when has someone ‘not wanting to talk’ ever stopped you?” Boss counters and retreats back into his office. Rita giggles, because, well… that was awful. He’s absolutely terrible at pep talks, and yet, it sorta worked. She feels better, less afraid, and more like the heroine of this story. It’s the thought that counts sometimes, and with Mistah Steel, that sometimes usually has to be all the time.

She reaches for her comms, but then Boss emerges from his office, bent over and butt first, wheeling something from his desk. He drops a stack of files on her desk and Rita stares as he sits himself down in his office chair, now parked at the side of her computer screen.

He starts flipping them open and she looks curiously at him. “Thought you might want the company,” Boss mutters and Rita bites back a squeal so as to not scare him off.

“That’s real sweet of you, Mistah Steel, but I _was_ just about to call Franny like you suggested.” She informs him, grinning.

“Oh. I’ll— I could just take my lunch break now.”

“You do that, Boss.”

He stands up from his swivel chair and stalks toward the door awkwardly. “I’ll be back in half an hour?”

“Okay, Boss,” she replies stoutly. The door of the agency clicks shut behind his flapping, hurried trench coat. Rita muffles her laughter before reaching for her comms.

There’s not really a reason for her to be worked up like this. Not when she knows Mistah Steel hasn’t been on a date for over four years, and anything that leans more into the ‘strangers with benefits’ category isn’t her business. Rita wouldn’t want to know about that stuff either.

Still, he gives another sigh through the comms he’d forgotten to switch off and Rita could almost sigh herself. He’s been distracted this whole job, more fidgety lately too, always worrying his pockets and walking silently around their office with the footsteps of a ghost.

There’s a gurgle on the other side, and Rita stands to attention, checking the cameras of the warehouse Mistah Steel’s scoping out, but there’s nothing. “I would blow you up if it meant food right now,” he tells the crates. “Wouldn’t even hesitate.”

“There’s snacks in your pockets, Boss!” She announces and through the grainy lines of her monitor, she sees his caped figure stumble back, the beginnings of a choked yell cutting itself off through the earpiece.

“Rita,” Boss hisses. “You’re still here.”

She pokes at the screen to his pockets and then realizes he can’t see it. “You forgot to turn your comms off. And I packed you some snacks, seeing as you’re always so busy brooding out the window during your breaks, I figured you were also neglectin’ food!”

“I don’t brood—” Boss’s avatar bends over and then pauses. “Rita, these are sausage paste bars. That’s disgusting.”

“They are not!” Rita gasps, hand on her chest. “They’re way more interesting than those boring cereal flavours!” She watches him hunch over, wincing and ducking for cover behind a stack of boxes. “Ever since that case with the Kanagawas and— and the Dark Matters, not-Dark-Matters agent, you’ve been actin’ weird, like a—” she gasps in realization. “A lovesick puppy!”

“I’ve really got to go, Rita. I can’t have you yelling in my ear.” Mistah Steel’s hand on screen knocks furiously at the side of his head like he’s trying to turn his comms off. Or brain himself.

Rita bites her lip. “Wrong button, Mistah Steel. Also wrong button, Mistah Steel. No, not that one either.”

“I _know_ it’s the wrong one, or I wouldn’t be able to hear—” his voice stops abruptly mid-sentence, and his little avatar slumps. She pats him through the monitor the way she would never be allowed to in real life.

“You’re welcome,” Rita informs him, half a city away.

Mistah Jet is sitting at the kitchen island when Rita first pokes her head in. Sitting at a spinning chair, he is the picture of regality with a pen to his mouth, grimacing at a crossword.

“Have you seen Mistah Steel at all today?” She asks. “I haven’t been able to find him.” There’s a thrumming in her veins from leaping out of bed and pulling on her favourite knee-high rainbow socks.

He hums and glances up, considering. “Is there something you needed him for? I don’t believe we have any missions planned for the next week.”

The cupboards are mostly barren when she pulls them open and Rita closes them with a pout. “It’s Valentines’!” At his uncomprehending look, she explains, “It’s an old Earth holiday that managed to make its way to Mars. Used to be a thing ‘bout ripping out the hearts of your enemies, but now I like to think about it as pre-sale chocolate day!”

“I might have to head into town myself, then.” Mistah Jet replies. “The others should be there as well, and now that I think about it, Buddy’s ‘nice day on the town’ might be just the celebration you’re referring to.”

Rita freezes over the cooler’s icy air, inhaling gusts of chilled oxygen from its depths. “Did you say all of ‘em? Like Mistah Ransom and Mistah Steel too, ‘all of them?’”

“I know that Juno was going into the city, yes, and I have not seen Ransom today, so I suppose it is possible they’re together.” Rita shuts the metal drawer and takes a breath. There’s no ice cream left anyway. “Did you require both of them?”

Oh. Well, that’s fine, right? It’s not like her and Mistah Steel ever really planned these things out. And she doesn’t _need_ Boss, exactly. Rita had just assumed they were doing what they always did on Valentines; they resolutely ignore the big billboards marketing treats for two people or more, chocolates in heart-shaped boxes, gifts for that significant other, or significant others. It’s tradition, choosing to spend the day with each other because they simply didn’t have those kinds of love lives to get back to. Though, they’d never really said it out loud before, and Rita hadn’t ever told Mistah Steel that’s what she thought they were doing… 

Eventually, it just became about having fun with Mistah Steel. Because she does love him, even if she’d never say it out loud with him fleeing halfway across the city at the slightest hint of affection. 

Or, that’s what he would’ve done. It’s been taking some getting used to, this new Mistah Steel who doesn’t snap at her when he’s upset and endures her hugs for thrice the time he used to.

“Um, just Mistah Steel, and,” Rita replies, twisting her hands in her woolen jumper, “I guess not?”

“If needed, I would be able to join you for whatever reason you required Juno,” Mistah Jet offers, picking up his ceramic glass from the table and setting it in the sink with a gentle click. His actions are always so careful, Rita thinks. Those of a person acutely aware of how easy it is to harm, but chooses to be gentle instead. It makes her admire him even more, that control. “Rita?”

Rita waves a dismissive hand, disentangling it from the front of her sweater. “No, no, that’s alright, Mistah Jet. You go have fun in town, buy yourself some mint wafers. I’ll be in my room if you need me, I think.”

“If you’re certain.” His eyebrows furrow as he looks at her and Rita darts out and around the corner from the kitchen’s entrance.

“I am!"

The door shuts a little too loudly behind her and Rita flinches from it, flopping onto her bed as soon as she registers she’s in her room once more. The shag blanket is bumpy against her face and she rolls into it, nice and tight until she feels like a furry, pink sushi roll. Her room is silent, save for the sound of her soft breathing and she buries her face into the sheet covers until that too is muffled.

There’s a stone in her gut, cold and disappointed, and Rita hates that she even feels it at all. If she expected something, she should have said it to Mistah Steel. In fact, she shouldn’t have expected anything in the first place. It’s Valentine’s! Of course, he’s spending it with his boyfriend, the first person Boss has been happy with in decades. Can’t she just be happy for him?

A part of her bitterly wishes Mistah Steel wanted to spend time with her instead of gallivanting off the way he always seems to with Mistah Ransom. But that is a thought born of tar and ugliness, so she shoves it down. Rita scowls into the muggy fuzz of her blanket and sits up. There are still twenty hours of ‘Werewolves in Orbit’ for her to get through, and if that doesn’t cheer her up, nothing will.

When she flicks on her comms display, it is only partially to drown out her own thoughts.

Two and a half episodes into the first season, there’s a knock on her door and Rita hauls herself out of bed, pausing the stream and dragging her blanket with her. “Mistah Jet, is there somethin’—” 

Boss peers into her room, head crooking to look at the crumpled mess of her bed, a white grocery bag at his side. “Hey, did you start without me?” he asks, and edges past her, pulling himself into her pile of blankets and letting the bag crinkle as it flops onto her covers. “Actually, that’s fine. Pretty sure I have the dialogue memorized at this point anyway.”

Rita unsticks herself from the doorway and stands at the foot of her bed. “Boss, what’re— I thought you were on a date with Mistah Ransom!”

“What?” Mistah Steel pauses from emptying out his bag and looks strangely at her. “No? I thought we were gonna watch ‘Werewolves in Orbit’ like we usually do? Tradition, right?”

Glee wells up in her chest and Rita could almost smile wide enough that all her teeth shine the way they do when she gets real excited. But she doesn’t.

“Are you sure?” She questions instead because now that it’s in her head, she can’t let go of that image, Mistah Steel smiling as he so often does now, soft and in love with Mistah Ransom. “Don’t you wanna spend today with Mistah Ransom? It is Valentine’s.”

“Yeah,” Boss pulls out a tub of tiger stripes and offers it to her, “and I spend Valentine’s with you. Always have. Even made sure to get that nasty orange-licorice stuff you like when I saw we were out,” he says, pulling out another tub along with a spoon.

Rita slowly joins him on the bed, fingers curling into pink ropey strands. “B-but, doesn’t Mistah Ransom expect you to go on a date with him?”

“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even know what Valentine’s is, never mind celebrate it.” Boss continues and hesitantly reaches out an arm to curl it around her shoulders. It’s different, him making the first move, reaching out to her instead of the other way around, but Rita finds she doesn’t mind the change so much. “Did… you want me to go?” His arm stiffens around her as he asks.

“No,” Rita says immediately, latching onto his side and he grins.

“Great. Well, me neither.”

She takes the tub of tiger stripes and sees Mistah Steel pull out his own with a bubble letter label reading ‘Chocolate Fudge.’ The lid is peeled off, and when she digs her spoon in, it’s to a layer of soft cream around the rounded top.

It goes sticky and sweet down her already tight throat and the aftertaste is cold and refreshing as a mouthful of mint when she inhales. “Y’know I don’t know if I’ve ever said it, but thanks for choosin’ to spend so much time with me Mistah Steel. I know we have a whole new crew of people to hang out with now, but… I dunno. I just really like watchin’ streams with you, even if it’s what we’ve been doing for the last decade or so.” Rita stops, unsure, and starts again tentatively. “S’long as you like doin’ it too.”

“‘Course I do.” Mistah Steel warbles around a mouthful of ice cream. He swallows. “Besides, it’s not like I ever thanked you for, uh, being there for me in the first place.” He hunches his shoulders awkwardly. “And why would I want to miss out on space werewolves? It’s only the twentieth time I’ve seen it this decade.”

“Aww, Mis-tah Steel,” Rita smiles and he sags at her side, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” Boss says exaggeratedly, and there’s something soft in the slope of his shoulders as it comes out a little more earnest than she thinks he intended it to be. “Are we gonna start watching or not?”

She unstops the pause with a grin.

The screen flickers in static bars across the actor’s faces for a second, and then they’re in motion again, moving expressively across the display. Her room flickers blue and highlights the soft curve of Mistah Steel’s cheeks, their arms pressed together. She shuffles in closer, tiger stripes cradled in her lap, and Boss doesn’t move or flinch away as he would’ve two decades ago. Rita digs her spoon into the soft surface of her orange-licorice ice cream and turns her attention to the stream washing them both in the haze of a well-loved story.

**Author's Note:**

> Aahhh Juno and Rita supporting each other through hard times and loving each other! I live for it. Fact: tiger stripes is an actual ice cream, it's just called "tiger tail."
> 
> Come find me @themagicmistress on Tumblr!


End file.
